give tonight. trying to give this united nation, as he faces a second term and all the challenges ahead. >> and in this divided country saying we know that passions have been stirred up, that we have fierce disagreements, but that our common purpose is so much bigger than our disagreements. and telling sasha and malia they will not get another dog. >> bipartisanship, that entire speech was streamed live on mittromney.com. received the call, governor romney said he was very classy. the president saying in the speech tonight he wants to meet with governor romney in the coming weeks, to talk how they can work together for the good of the country. the president also saying he will meet down with the leaders of the other party. and try to come together to meet these challenges as well.

>> it is a reminder of what an extraordinary, exceptional and inspiring country this is on a night like this when we have all come together to vote. so many long lines, so many obstacles, so much passion, such a hard fought race, and here we are again. a president who has been re-elected tonight. as a point of privilege as we are watching this i just want to thank our technical team here at abc news election headquarters, i want to thank every single person off the air, because you have seen a lot of us on the air. you have no idea, the legions are behind the scenes and what they do. again all of you went to the polls and voted. >> everyone in this room,

everyone who participated in the pageant of democracy. thank you for joining us. >> we end with this, a woman, i have three sons who served in the military, my husband served too, i voted because he fights for our freedom every day. to all of you, good night. ♪ ♪

we are an american family, and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people. >> president obama secures four more years as president. victories in the swing states put him well over the top with the votes needed to win the electoral college. good evening, everyone. i'm carolyn johnson. >> i'm dan ashley. as you well know barack obama has been re-elected president of the united states. he just finished speaking to the nation, and he accepted the concession call from mitt romney two hours ago. >> the president won the important swing states of ohio, wisconsin, colorado and

new hampshire. one swing state, florida, is still undeclared tonight. >> the president thanked the crowd and talked about what he wants to do over the next four years, his second term. >> you voted for action, not politics as usual. you elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. in the coming weeks and months, i am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together, reducing our deaf tau sit, reforming our tax code, fixing our immigration system, freeing ourselves from foreign oil. we've got more work to do. >> this is a time of great challenges for america, and i pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation. >> all right, now on to the house and senate.

>> republicans lost three key seats tonight in the u.s. senate where democrats remain in control. they have 52 seats. republicans have 44. >> three senate races are undecided tonight, a total of 10gop seats were at stake. >> and the house is staying in republican hands with 231 republicans and 184 democrats. 20 seats are still a toss up as we speak, but democrats needed to i can p up 25 seats to gain control of the house. >> we want to take you back to the presidential race. of course barack obama say vorring -- savoring another victory. >> mark matthews is live with the obama campaign in chicago tonight. mark? >> the president is still on the stage. i don't know if you can see there he is just walking off now. he has been on the stage for a good while, about 30 minutes as he spoke to the crowd here. let me take you back and show you the reaction from this audience when the final tally came in that put him over the

top. >> the crowd in this hall just erupted. there are an estimated 10,000 people, maybe 18,000. i'm telling you, it sounded like an army in here. when he went over the top, this place went crazy. the joint was jumpin. and then when the president walked out and began his speech another huge eruption from the crowd. the president walking out from stage left taking the podium first with his family and then by himself talking about the future. >> we are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. we are and forever will be the united states of america, and together with your help and god's grace we will continue our journey forward and remind

the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on earth. thank you, america. god bless you. god bless you, united states. >> reporter: the president saying we are more than a collection of red and blue states. we are the greatest nation in the world. the crowd loving it. they expected a celebration here tonight. they came expecting a celebration, but this has passed all expectations in terms of the response from the crowd tonight. it has been deafening. it has been exhilarating. in chicago, mark matthews, abc7 news. >> what a place to be, mark. thanks very much. >> abc7 news reporter laura anthony is with the romney campaign in boston. >> hi, carolyn. quite a different scene here in boston. as exciting and exhilarating as it sounds like it was in chicago, here in boston pretty early on in the evening it was

pretty clear that things were not going the way the romney supporters had hoped they would. especially when the swing states started falling one by one. everyone here had pinned their hopes on winning at least some of those. as they watched them go one by one in obama's favor it was clear this was not going to be a good night. at about 5:00 to 1:00 in the morning, 12:55 here local time governor romney took the stage behind me. he came out all alone. the cheers were subdued i would say. the crowd was large, but very quiet. he began to make his remarks. he said he called the president. he had conceded to the president and then he talked about what he hoped for the country in the months to come. >> the nation as you know is at a critical point. we cannot risk particle bickering and political posturing. our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do america's work. we also have to rise to the

occasion. >> all right, that was governor romney speaking to the crowd here. he spoke forbearly five minutes -- for bear looy five minutes. it was awkward and subdued. he was clearly disuh interest pooed. after his speech we spoke with folks out on the floor including a couple who know the romneys personally. >> we supported mitt 100%. we think he would have been a wonderful president and she would have been a wonderful first lady. i guess we are moving on. >> as long and as exuberant as that crowd was or as long as the speech was and exuberant as the crowd was in chicago it was the opposite in boston. governor romney's speech, maybe five minutes. then his wife joined him on stage, his five sons. we understand 16 of 18 grandchildren were here in boston with him watching those

returns come in tonight. but it was clear pretty early on here that this was going to be a disappointing might for the romney camp. one small consulation, perhaps the vice presidential candidate paul ryan did win re-election to his congressional seat in wisconsin. in boston, laura anthony, abc news. >> thank you. as you can imagine leading democrats aren newsed about sending -- are newsed about sending obama back to the what house for four more years. >> here is what people had to say about the obama victory. >> now it is up to the republicans in the congress whether they want to meet him halfway and get some things done . their whole game plan for four years was to make sure president obama wasn't re-elected. the people have spoken. they have spoken overwhelmingly. >> this election was about the failure of republicans at the national level to win the prosperity argument. the notion of tax cuts for the economy is economically wrong,

but republicans have failed to make the case on how to bring the economy back through the private enterprise system. >> he had a great record. he saved us from a near depression, rescued the auto industry, got rid of osama bin laden, passed health care. i think this is the mandate that says let's go forward with health care. it is like, all right. >> i cannot be more excited for him. i am excited to see what is to come in the next four years. i have a lot of faith and he can turn our country around. >> i am so glad he gets one more term. thank you, california, forgetting out there and voting today. we really made a big difference. >> wow. well, the street with packed obama supporters is starting to wind down. >> vic vic lee is live with that story. hi, vic. >> we could hear the crowds cheering wildly at a couple

bars near us when president obama spoke. but the street party, the organized street party here in the castro ended a little while ago. at one point there were a thousand people that police cordoned off between 18th and market. and now the party probably would have lasted longer, but the tallies, the vote tallies came so quickly. when the networks announced president obama had won drivers started honking their horns as they passed us here on mark -- market and the crowd at the twin peaks bar that was an institution cheered wildly. they spilled out in the street. it was an exuberant crowd. they were very popular in the castro because of the open support of marriage equality. there were other issues, the lgbt community was monitoring very closely tonight four states, maine, maryland, wisconsin and minnesota all had marriage equality and ballot propositions or referendums.

we bumped into a couple of plaintiffs in the lawsuit that overturned prop 8. listen to what they had to say. >> for the first time marriage equality has won at the ballot box not once, but twice in maine and maryland and the polls are looking good in minnesota and washington state too. it is an historic evening for our community. >> for the first time in the history of our nation, there is an openly lesbian woman in the united states senate. this never happened before. >> he is referring to tammy baldwin. she won her senate seat in wisconsin. the first openly lesbian senator that ever won election to the u.s. senate. there was a lot to celebrate in the castro. a lot of big victories for the lgbt community. that's the latest from the castro, vic lee, abc7 news. >> thanks, vic. joining us with analysis is melinda jackson of san jose state. she is an associate professor

of political science and research director for the survey and policy research institute at san jose state. >> her areas of interest are public opinion, civic engagement and political participation. she is also an expert in polling. let's talk about the polls. pretty much dead on accurate. no real surprises tonight at all, right? >> that's right. everything we have seen tonight was predicted by the polls. so despite some doubts that were raised in the last few weeks, the polls performed very well this year. >> what does that say about polling? is it an accurate process? >> the challenges have gotten much more severe in the last two years. fewer and fewer people are picking up the phone and answering these polls. more people have a cell phone and they are harder to reach. but the polling world is adapting to those changes, and as we can see we have a real election to compare it to and they were right on this year. >> it seemed like the obama campaign was really dialed into all of this. when you look at the popular

vote being as close as it was, but compare that to the electoral college vote and they played to where they need to get people on the ground and work. >> i think the obama campaign can credit the victory in part to their amazing ground game. they are targeting their voters and figuring out the swing states early and getting out the vote. this is definitely a good night for democrats and i think republicans will be rethinking their strategies a little bit. >> let's think about going forward now. how does president obama heal those wounds and try to reach out and try to reach out after such a really difficult -- >> well, we heard him starting to do that tonight. he went back to the united states of america. we are not red states and blue states. we need to come together and work together and he really talked about bipartisan ship. we haven't seen that in the last four years.

it has been difficult for republicans in congress. but tonight at least he is definitely hitting those themes of trying to bring the country back together after what has been a decisive cam pin season. >> we shall see going forward. thank you so much. >> you can get realtime election results at abc7news.com. of course, the major issue on the california ballot tonight is proposition 30. >> that's the governor's proposal to raise the sales tax and prevent more cuts to schools. checking the updated numbers it is really at this moment just a virtual tie. 36 of the precincts reporting. the vote number is almost identical, 50/50 at this point. >> and lyanne melendez who is our education reporter was watching it live in sacramento. hi, lyanne? hi, lyanne. >> hi. i am actually hearing here that proposition 30 for the first time this evening is slightly ahead. but people realize here that we can be here for awhile

because the race is as you indicated very close, and it is early in the evening. the results are still coming in. governor brown has still not shown up here. he is waiting and of course everybody wants to hear from him. but earlier, there was a minute thee valley with education leaders and with lawmakers who supported proposition 30. for example, one was a senate president. let's hear from him. >> tonight is the end of one difficult chapter. in california's history in the beginning of a new and better chapter where we reinvest in people we say education matters and we stand for california. thank you, thank you very much. >> so the state superintendent , talk about somebody who is

very anxious to inned foo the results results -- to find the results of this proposition. he also told me if this pleasure pleasure -- this measure does not pass, be sure that several districts will go bankrupt. also on the ballot was proposition thirtd 8, another education-related proposition behind that one. she issued a statement a short time ago. molly said transformational changes take time, and we are committed to staying the course until our state truly does tackle the school funding crisis. we know now has failed. we are waiting for the governor to show up, governor brown. i understand he is in the hotel in sacramento he will address many of the supporters. i am live in sacramento. lyanne melendez, abc news.

>> thank you so much. >> lyanne was talking about proposition 38 which has been declared defeated. here are the numbers. no votes 74%. >> now looking at proposition 34. this is the one that repeals the death penalty in california. it is also losing as you can see. 55-45%. falling further behind as more returns come in. it is still too close to call. 36% of the precincts reporting. >> heather ishimaru is covering that in sacramento as well. heather? >> carolyn, the yes on 34 campaign says even though they are trailing right now they are sure they will come back with big numbers. they are waiting for what they consider the key los angeles and bay area counties. those votes to be counted. prop 34 would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. that is for convictions going

forward and also that would apply to the 725 inmates currently on death row. they say the death penalty is too expensive, and it is a broken system with only 13 executions since 1978. again the yes on 34 campaign is waiting for the key bay area and los angeles counties to be counted. for now 34 is losing. >> if for some reason it doesn't turn out our way, we will continue this conversation we have been having with the california voters. we know we have millions to reach with the facts that the death penalty is costly and it risks executing an innocent person. we will continue to work for justice that works for all californians. >> opponents say the savings and argues we need a higher punishment for the worst of the worst. the 2% that get this death penalty.

we are talking about richard ramirez's of the world. if 34 does pass, it will make california the 18th state without a death penalty. live in sacramento, heather ishimaru, abc scef -- abc7 news. >> thanks. one measure winning big is proposition 36. we can show you the numbers. it substantially changes california's three strikes law essentially limiting the third strike to a violent crime. >> you can see 68% yes and 36% of precincts reporting. >> lots of propositions to talk about, but we are also watching some of the bay area congressional races. >> and some are close of the larry beil has a look at that. >> we have a lot of interesting stuff to show you. a number of races watching closely in the bay area. a lot of the districts have changed dramatically in california and that's because of the initiative passed by voters in 2008. and that's what mandated it. we will go to the board and zero in on california. then we will bring it full and

then expand it out so you can get a better view of what the districts look like here. we'll slide it upright there. let's start by talking about district 2. this is a district that has changed a lot. let me illustrate how much it has. you you -- you look at where this district encompasses. the golden gate is right there, and it extends all the way to the oregon border. it is a massive area. you look at jarod right here with 49% of the precincts reporting, and it is almost -- it really is a run away at this point. he has 70% of the votes. we will zero in on jarod huffman, a state assemblyman. and he played on the team usa national volleyball team. if you look at these numbers again, about half of the vote total in at this point, you would say he is serving up spikes tonight.

it looks like jarod huffman will take over the seat right there. let's move to other districts. we will go to district 9 right there and this is jerry mcnerny. this is an area that stretches past the delta. 27% of the precincts reporting right here. mcnerny is the incumbent. ricky gill is only 25 years old and was appointed by arnold schwarzenegger a few years ago to the -- i will just pull it out as he was uh .ed. imagine running for the house of representatives at age 25. mcnerny has a 52% lead to 47% with 27% of the precincts reporting at this point. one more district i want to show you. looking at this -- >> larry -- >> we will check back. >> sorry, we just got a bit of a breaking development with the election. >> we want to take you to jerry brown in sacramento. >> working people to organize and organize their dues power

and political power to advance the cause of working people everywhere. that's 32. proposition 30, i know a lot of people had some doubts, had some questions about can you really go to the people and ask them to vote for a tax? well when i ran for governor i did say -- i said three things. one, i want to level with you, tell you the truth. no more smoke and mirrors on the budget. two, we won't have taxes unless the people themselves vote for. it and three, we are going to move government as close as we can to local communities and to the people. well here we are. we have a vote of the people. the only place in america where a state actually said let's raise our taxes for our kids, for our schools, for our california dream.

>> governor brown speaking in sacramento about proposition 30. it was on the ballot and would fund schools in california. >> about evenly divided right now. we have a lot more election results ahead including the food labeling initiative. >> that's prop 37 where california voters decide if they want to know more about what they are eating. here are more election results for you. as we go to the break, stay with us.

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[ female announcer ] add your own ingredients to hamburger helper for a fresh take on a quick, delicious meal. it's one box with hundreds of possibilities. progresso. in what world do potatoes, bacon and cheese add up to 100 calories? your world. ♪ [ whispers ] real bacon... creamy cheese... 100 calories... [ chef ] ma'am [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. berkeley students into registered voters paid off. 200 waited in line to cast their ballots at a residents

hall. one of 13 polling locations set up around the campus. campus organizers say they registered about 8,000 people to vote for this election. >> let's check in on some proposition. prop 37 would require food makers to tell you on the label if your food was made with genetic ingredients. >> it is losing significantly tonight. a no vote ahead at 56%. this is with 38% of precincts reporting. big ad companies poured tens of millions of dollars to fight proposition 37. 85% of the nation's corn is jennette stickily -- jaw met particularly modified and it would mean big changes not just here, but across the country. >> cornell bernard is covering that story. he is live in san francisco. cornell? >> yes, dan and carolyn, prop supporters thought it would be a victory party, but it appears the party is over. the measure is trailing in the polls. these people say they want the right to know what is in the food they buy.

they hoped voters across california would agree and want the same thing. prop 37 asks voters to decide if manufacturers should be required to label foods that have been made with geneticall engineered ingredients. opponents say it would make groceries more expensive and red tape for farmers. supporters say it is about a basic right to know. >> really it was an education process, but we -- the campaign was boiled down to you have a right to know what is in your food. it is a basic democratic question. already 61 other countries in the world label their food product. >>- q. i it is about families -- >> it is about the families paying more at the grocery store and the state paying more to regulate. voters need to look into the details of proposition 37. >> ♪ because we all have a right to know ♪ ♪ if our food is gmo >> the corn fish car is parked outside the yes on 37 party

poking fun on props that have been genetically engineered. win or lose, they say they ran an educational campaign despite being out spent an estimated 7-1 by the opposition including food and chemical companies that spent an estimated $45 million to defeat it. live in san francisco, cornell bernard, abc7 news. >> all right, cornell, thanks. from genetic food to soda pop. >> the controversial soda

richmond voters are voting down a penny tax on sugar sweet beverages to fight obesity. it is still early with 19% of the precincts reporting, but you can see this measure n in contra costa county in the city of richmond going down to defeat 67% to 33% at this moment. >> abc7 news reporter john alston has been covering this measure since it was

introduced, and he is live in richmond. john? >> right. it is somewhat subdued and there is disappointment that measure n is trailing. it would have put richmond in the history books as the first u.s. city in history to have a tax on soda and sugar drinks. they poured a ton of money trying to kill the measure and $2.5 million compared to just $69,000 for supporters of measure n. it would have added a penny tax per ounce on sugar redrinks that businesses would have to pay. supporters say it would generate several thousand dollars for anti-obesity programs in richmond. >> we are disappointed one because we know it means more children will not live as long as if it passed. that's sad to me. but we are elated about the campaign that we put forward. i think this is -- if it doesn't happen tonight, it will happen.

>> this was a regress sigh tax. i have never been for this tax from day one. it is a spring board for dr. ru dis derman to travel all over the world. jeff rudderman has his head swollen up on this with an attack on economically suppressed people. >> so a little bit of bad blood on the richmond city council. a number of grocery stores had no on n signs. for now it appears to be trailing as we head toward the midnight hour. live in richmond, john alston, abc news. >> thanks so much. we will be right back with more on the election including results from other high-profile races around the country. >> stay here with us. our election night special